As four-year-old Charlotte fights for her life in Brisbane Children’s Hospital, her heartbroken Lismore-based father Brad Jones can’t get over the border to see her.

Charlotte and her mother Melissa have been in Brisbane since January 23, since Charlotte was diagnosed with leukemia at Lismore Base Hospital.

For the past few months, Brad has been holding down a job, as well as regularly travelling up to visit them while Charlotte undergoes chemotherapy - however the recent changes as to who is allowed to cross the border have put a stop to that.

To make matters more complex, Brad is looking after the couple’s other children at home, while his partner and daughter stay in children’s cancer care accommodation in Brisbane.

Read the update: Border politics still stands between Lismore dad and his sick daughter

Deteriorating

Charlotte’s health has been deteriorating and this week, she even stopped breathing. Brad said he is desperate to find a way that the family can be together.

“I’m trying to not show too much emotion for my children’s sake,” Brad said. “I’ve been talking to border control and I’ve enlisted the help of Page MP Kevin Hogan.

“Before the border closure I could go as freely as I chose as we had compassionate grounds passes and oncologist reports.

Stuck

“The last time I was up there, I left three of my children up there as I didn’t think we would be locked down as hard as we are – then I found out there was no medical or compassionate grounds any more and they were stuck up there.

“Last week, my partner’s brother drove the kids down and they walked through the border and I picked them up. We are lucky he was up there, or no one would have been able to look after the kids in the unit while Melissa was at hospital with Charlotte.

Border crossing

“While I was there waiting at the Queensland border to pick them up, I watched surfboard riders and dog walkers walking across and back again.

“I could have walked across too – I guess if I was stopped by police and asked for ID my licence would have shown I’m not in the border bubble - the security were only stopping cars.

“When I talked to Queensland border security, all they said to me was we can exempt you but you will have to stay in hotel quarantine at your expense and pay for your meals – and you’ll only be allowed at the hospital for a maximum of two hours.

Ridiculous

“That’s ridiculous. The people at the cancer support unit have said if I can get over the border, I can stay there."

Brad said even if he could get an exemption to go up there for a week and take the children with him, there is still a two hour visit restriction at the hospital.

“And I don’t know if they’ll let us do it again anyway,” Brad said. “There’s hardly any COVID-19 cases up there now – there’s more road crash fatalities than coronavirus. I know it’s a pandemic, but this is a hard one.

“I knew this year would be hard with Charlotte, but it’s harder than I ever could have imagined.

Football disgrace

“I think it’s disgraceful that Queensland is allowing footballers to go back and forth - it’s not right. It’s not State against State – maybe they are taking it hard that they lost the football – but they can have the trophy back if it gets us over the border.

Birthday tears

“I haven’t held my daughter for four weeks – we’ve never been apart that long before.

“We missed out on a family birthday together – we had a video call and a cake on both ends and there were lots of tears.

“She’s got a port in her chest and been through chemotherapy, steroids, had 11 blood transfusions and platelet transfusions.

“She needs support and her dad needs to be there. When we Facetime, she’ll look at me and say ‘daddy I need you to come here’ and then she gets sad.

“She’s a warrior. If she died and I didn’t get to see her…. I don’t know what will happen.

“I’ve done 21,000 kilometres travel in seven months visiting her already. Now, it breaks my heart that she is 2.5 hours up the road and I can’t see her.”

MP Hogan slams border decision

Federal Member for Page Kevin Hogan has released a statement slamming the Queensland Premier’s decision to keep the borders closed.

“There seems to be one rule for some and other rules for others,” Mr Hogan said. “Following extensive lobbying by the Premier, Queensland is now hosting the AFL Grand Final.

“Why is she happy to open the border for AFL footy players, but not for us from our COVID-free region?

“Our region has no community transmission of the virus. We are not a 'hot spot'. There is nothing but heartache and damage being done to families health and livelihoods.

“This might be playing well for the QLD Premier politically in the short term, but this border closure is causing havoc."

Tragedy

Mr Hogan also cited the case of a local tragedy of a pregnant mother from Ballina who needed emergency care for her unborn twins.

“She waited 16 hours to fly to a Sydney hospital, rather than a short trip to Brisbane. Sadly, one of the babies has now tragically passed away,” Mr Hogan said.

“This is not Australian, this is not how we operate.

“The Queensland Premier says Queensland hospitals are only for Queenslanders, well more than 6000 Queensland citizens were treated at Tweed Hospital (in NSW) in 2019. This represents 20% of all in-patients.”